Threats to Locke's family are a factor in third-term decision

Something scary and sickening lurks like a stalker behind the pretty picture of Gov. Gary Locke leaving office to spend more time with his small son and daughter.

It's true Locke decided that a run for a third term would leave scant time to savor the joys and discoveries of being an everyday dad.

But ugly threats against Locke's family, specifically his kids, contributed in some measure to the governor's decision. And, however you feel about Locke as a leader, that sinister fact should worry everyone in the state.

A column I wrote last month on the toll of nasty personal attacks on public people got Sen. Ken Jacobsen thinking about the threats he'd heard against the Lockes. So, after the governor announced his decision, Jacobsen called with a chill up his spine.

As far back as two years ago, Jacobsen said, other legislators told him they believed Locke was leaning against another run. And at least part of that was due to the potential menace and pinheaded meanness another election might expose his children to.

"There were definitely death threats on his kids," Jacobsen said. "It wasn't really reported at the time. But a man was arrested just a few months ago for having made some of those threats just after Locke was elected to a second term."

"He wondered what he was putting his family through," former Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder told me on Wednesday.

A father figure in Olympia until he, himself, traded public office for more time with his wife, Synder said Locke was clearly concerned two years ago. "And I thought then that he'd never run again, that things like that might weigh on his decision," Snyder said.

"All the things a governor has to worry about and now this," was how Locke put it to Snyder at the time.

Then came Locke's rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union Address.

An avalanche of ugliness crashed out of the e-mail ether.

Hundreds and hundreds of e-mailed insults and slurs, many of

them personally threatening, poured into the governor's office. "Some were really racist, saying things like, 'Why don't you and your family get on a boat and go back to China,' " Jacobsen recalled. "I think Gary, having had his kids later in life and maybe feeling them to be especially precious, made him worry about what they might face."

His own kids are grown, Jacobsen said. "And (compared with Locke) most people don't even know who I am out in public." Still, he admits it can be unnerving when someone radiating rage rises up in a public meeting to lob a highly personal verbal attack. Or when e-mails arrive as intimidating messages.

Locke's communications director Roger Nyhus deflected all questions about threats to the first family. "We don't discuss security measures," he said on Wednesday night, adding, "Obviously the governor and his family have accepted the risks of public office."

Threats did not weigh prominently in Locke's decision to leave, Nyhus insisted. "It boiled down to a decision to become a normal family and watch their children grow up," he said.

Nyhus confirmed that "one individual" was recently arrested for making threats against the Locke family. "And obviously any parent would be concerned," he said.

But he stressed that the decision was more a matter of wanting an everyday life.

"This was a family decision," deputy communications director Michael Marchand agreed. But he confirmed there were well-documented threats on Locke's life. "And I don't know if there's any way to calibrate whether or not that played a role," he said.

How could it not?

Now the already crowded battle to replace Locke is coming to a rapid boil. Let's hope that none of the contenders -- one of them a woman, one of them African American and all of them with families -- is burned by assaults on their personal safety. At the very least, let's make a pact to leave the kids alone.